{"id":240269,"date":"2026-04-08T11:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/240269\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T11:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:30:10","slug":"sec-title-game-not-best-thing-for-texas-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/240269\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC title game ‘not best thing’ for Texas, others"},"content":{"rendered":"

But he doesn\u2019t love the ramifications that a loss in a conference title tilt could mean for his team, especially as the expansion of the 12-team College Football Playoff seems inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate to win a couple of SEC titles at my previous spot, and it\u2019s a special moment,\u201d Sarkisian told reporters Tuesday, referencing his time as an assistant when Alabama won the 2016 and 2019 SEC title games. \u201cYou guys know I’m a big college football fan. The history of the SEC championship game, the great players, the great teams that have been in that game; the idea that we might be moving away from that is a little disappointing, but I understand it, too. I\u2019ve got to be a realist with this; if we continue to grow from a playoff perspective \u2014 16, 20, 24, wherever this thing goes \u2014 \u00a0it might not be the best thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate over conference title games in the SEC and other three power conferences has been on a steady simmer ever since the\u00a0CFP expanded to 12 games for the 2024 season, and it\u2019s heated up this offseason. Earlier this week, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne said the SEC\u2019s title game that began in 1992 with Alabama\u2019s 28-21 win over Florida \u00a0should end, especially since a loss can knock a team out of the CFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the ship has sailed. It\u2019s run its course,\u201d Byrne said in a recent interview with USA Today<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a great event (and) I don\u2019t like the idea of it going away, but I think it\u2019s reality with an expanded playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

No current SEC coach has enjoyed more success at the SEC title game than Georgia\u2019s Kirby Smart. He has won three SEC championships over the past nine years, including a 22-19 overtime victory<\/a> over Sarkisian and the Longhorns in 2024. But Smart says the scheduling demands of the current CFP playoff make conference title games awkward, and CFP expansion could make them almost impossible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we are right now with 12 teams, I don\u2019t necessarily agree that it needs to quit being played,\u201d he told On3 earlier this week. \u201cBut if it gets to 16 or 24 and we\u2019ve got to move the end of the season up and we\u2019ve got to get everything done by the second week of January, then I\u2019d say it probably has to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an argument Sarkisian\u2019s boss has already made. Chris Del Conte, the Texas athletic director, said in February<\/a> during his annual town-hall presentation \u00a0that the conference-championship weekend takes up valuable scheduling time without offering many benefits to the participating teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy have a conference championship game? Let\u2019s start the playoffs that week, right?\u201d Del Conte said. \u201cStart the playoffs that week, and let\u2019s play every single week, and the semifinals are played on New Year\u2019s Day \u2014 which is college football \u2014 and the national championship a week later. That\u2019s what I\u2019d like to see, but I\u2019m one vote. But this is where we need to get to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarkisian doesn\u2019t argue the logic even if he would lament the loss of what was once one of the season\u2019s biggest games before the creation and expansion of the CFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI trust the people that are making decisions for us that are going to put our teams and our staffs and our universities in the best position to highlight our teams,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cBut on the same token, I want to hold on to it too, because, man, it’s a special game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But he doesn\u2019t love the ramifications that a loss in a conference title tilt could mean for his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,782,9764,266,27,29,537,536,28],"class_list":["post-240269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-football","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-sec","tag-sec-football","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}